sold his interest to Jacob W. Cruger and the publishers now became Cruger and Moore: they were also Public Printers and continued to hold that office even after the Capital had been removed to Austin. At the latter place they established, on January 15, 1840, The Texas Sentinel, but continued The Tele- graph at Houston. Gail Borden, after selling his interest in the paper, eventually returned to his native State and founded in New York City the great milk company which bears his name. Of the journalism conditions in Texas while a Republic the following re'sume* has been left by "an emigrant, late from the United States": "That the Texians are a reading people is manifested by the fact that there are now twelve newspapers published in the Republic. One of these is a daily paper pub- lished at Houston, and one or two others are, during the sessions of Congress, semi-weekly ones. In a population so small, and with such imperfect post routes, to sustain so many papers must be admitted to be an astonishing circumstance."
TOPLIFF'S ' ' NEWS-BOOM "
Possibly Samuel Topliff made the first attempt to gather news to be retailed among several newspapers. Establishing his headquarters in a "news-room" in the Coffee Exchange in Boston he made a specialty of the reports of the market and the commercial news of Boston Harbor. He kept a logbook in which captains of boats which had just arrived wrote the news they had picked up at foreign ports. This logbook was available to the Boston newspapers for a consideration. Mention has already been made of how The Boston Transcript availed itself of such an opportunity when it brought out its first issue in 1830.
PRESS PIGEONS OF CRAIG
While Topliff was busy in Boston, Arunah S. Abell, of The Baltimore Sun, and D. H. Craig were busy experimenting the possibility of using pigeons to carry news. Headquarters were established in Baltimore and here the pigeons were trained: at one tune over four hundred were kept in a house on Ham- stead Hill near the Maryland Hospital for the Insa
